The development of web publishing technologies like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is great for entrepreneurial-minded people thinking of running a website that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of powerful CMS technologies, if you wanted to build a website built for your business, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we will explore what WP themes are, how WP themes save you and your business money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your website.
The Evolution Of Web Site Design
More website owners will benefit from a revolutionary change in web design that has been going for several years now. If you own a small business, you may want to know more about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
Let’s briefly review what happened before software like WordPress were developed:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or designer. Then, the actual “web design” itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing areas of the website like the, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with the elements and scripts coded into the page content. All pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was performing how it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web site template allows the presentation of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of templates helped to speed up the web creation process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web site designers to work with business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development agencies began using “template-based” websites, templates were developed that could provide expanding custom settings, such as the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website building applications evolved, website templates also started transforming into web templating ”systems”, letting users and website developers control their web site’s design components.
Then, a “blogging” software called WordPress came along and helped to start a new web revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes improve web templating systems much further.
A WordPress theme controls the design aspects of your web site. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it provides you with complete control over the management, presentation and customization of your site’s template features.
As the official WordPress site explains …
A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php).
(source: WordPress.org)
As stated above, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that how your website displays to visitors is an entirely separate system from your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
In plain English terms, what this means is that a theme lets you change the look and feel of your site as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress site has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WP theme you like, and completely change the look, feel and design of your website in mere minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without requiring web code development skills. Just pick any theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, commercial web designers can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WordPress are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
WordPress themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are beautiful and would easily cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can view several WP theme galleries containing various examples of great WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using WP Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using tools that require traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial website developers who, collectively, make thousands of professional WP Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your templates as often as you like without modifying your content.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and options that let you easily customize your site’s style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically within the dashboard.
- Themes lets you save thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many WP theme developers are now developing “responsive” WP themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and display the site on most device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will work correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
We hope that this article has provided you with a clearer understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how they can help you save money, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize a WP site.
In our next blog post on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find great themes for your website or blog.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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